Game Reviews

First off, I have to rave for one paragraph about Twin Suns Comic Books and Game Center. FINALLY, a gaming store in Albuquerque whose owners love and know all sorts of games and strongly encourage the gaming community to gather together for awesome sessions of varying board and card games. If you are seeking a clean, bright gaming environment populated with enthusiastic, knowledgeable and (of course!) competitive gamers who will sell their child, wife or dog to win a game (but only if fairly accomplished), this is YOUR place to play!

I have only recently have had the pleasure to meet and know Drew and Josh Allred, the twin brothers who own Twin Suns Comic Books and Game Center. If you are seeking knowledgeable and honest gamers who have committed their lives to the art of gaming, you cannot find any two better people. Even when they are not on the premises (hey, they are open to the gaming public SEVEN DAYS A WEEK and they need time off too!), the employees they have on staff are awesomely informed and enthusiastic about the huge variety of games that they stock.

My wife and I went in right before Christmas to snag a couple of games for our 15 year old daughter who thrives on the unusual and offbeat games, particularly board games. After spending close to an hours perusing their vast inventory of board games (we agreed to buy one game for the family), we finally settled on Steam: Rails to Riches for our family Christmas present and also got the Cthulu version of Munchkin (we are avid Munchkin fans who already have the original game along with plenty of extension decks) for our daughter’s birthday (which falls on December 29 – just enough time to learn Steam: Rails to Riches before taking on a new variation of Munchkin).

We were too antsy to wait until even Christmas Eve, so on December 23, we showed our daughter the new family game. Of course, we dove right in and went through the rules and did our best to set up the game. As with any reasonably complex and challenging game, it takes a bit of time to get the big picture, but we did pretty good in setting up the game on our own.

After playing a few rounds, we decided to view a video to get a better clue as to what was going on overall.We quickly discovered a YouTube walk through that provided an excellent overview of the game. You can watch the full version below:

This gave us an excellent boost in moving forward; however it was late in the night and we were ready to dream of railroads, coins and cities and decided to tackle it further when our eyes were less bleary.

Before we resumed play I decided to try to find one more video and I succeeded with this one:

Below is a quick screen cap of Steam: Rails to Riches in the midst of play:

SUMMARY

This game is a great lesson in economics and domination. This is also a high strategy game; even though there are some random incidents that affect the overall game layout, you need to be able to step back and look at the larger picture. Is it better to compete head on head against another player, or build railroads on the outer edges where fewer competitors can upset your plans.

Each round involves 6 phases and if you do not remain alert through each phase, it could cost you the victory!